I am not sure this applies to all schools in the area but I know of a High School (hahahaha) in Dumaguete with the following recent (and future known dates) attendance records for their pupils (but more excuses for closing the schools may yet surface): October 16th to 18th (3 days): Part attendance due to grading exams (in my time as a school pupil and school teacher it was only for external exams where attendance was part time). October 19th to 20th (2 days): Closed due to floods - sound reason for closure but should make the schools think how to make up the time lost (below will show that this never happened) October 23rd to Nov 1st (8 school days): Closed for Semestral Break So that is about two and a half weeks with no education. However, this is followed by being back at school for a whole FIVE days (amazing) ... THEN, Nov 9th to 17th (8 school days): CLOSED because of some sports thing (?) So, five days education out of the previous FIVE WEEKS (25 school days). Followed by another 4 days of being in school (I have stopped using the term "being educated") And now we learn that Nov 24th to Dec 1st (6 school days): CLOSED ... ? due to some sports thing again (who knows!). A GRAND TOTAL of 9 days 'being in school' out of a 35 school-days period. And the sad thing is they probably do about 2 days serious work in those 9 days.
Seems like most schools here are just one big joke all around here. Any excuse not to open and when they do its not really doing the kids much good..
And we have to suffer from bad services because many kids are not learning well in the schools. (What they ain't learning, they can not apply in a real live.)
My gf's niece learns the cutest songs and dance routines though ! Very entertaining. Real book learning,,, not so much.
School breaks here are like Italian elections, roughly as many as a Chinaman on his honeymoon. All legit.